Court restores conviction of security guard in club shooting

Andrew Gesslein, 45, of Hamburg, Berks County was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting 23-year-old Michael Randolph outside the North End Republican Club in April 2012.

Andrew Gesslein, 45, of Hamburg, Berks County was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting 23-year-old Michael Randolph outside the North End Republican Club in April 2012. (DONNA FISHER, THE MORNING CALL/FILE PHOTO)

A security guard's manslaughter conviction for shooting an Allentown has been reinstated

A Lehigh County judge was wrong to throw out Andrew Gesslein's voluntary manslaughter conviction for shooting an aspiring rapper outside an Allentown social club, a state appeals court has ruled.

But the five- to 10-year mandatory prison term the former security guard received for the April 2012 killing of 23-year-old Michael Randolph is illegal, the court found, ordering Gesslein's case back to Lehigh County for a new sentence.

The decision came Monday in an appeal by the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office of Judge Robert L. Steinberg's order last year granting Gesslein's post-trial motion for a new trial.

Gesslein's attorney, James Connell of Bethlehem, said the Superior Court decision creates uncertainty for his client, who remains in prison, unable to raise the $25,000 bail required for him to get out during the appeal.

Gesslein can ask the state Supreme Court to review the decision, though that could take another year, or he could go back to Lehigh County Court for his new sentence and then file an appeal challenging his conviction.

Either way, there is no guarantee that Gesslein's prison term will be reduced, Connell said. The mandatory five-year minimum sentence that the appeals court ruled illegal is within the range of possible sentences a Lehigh County judge could impose on Gesslein during his re-sentencing on his voluntary manslaughter conviction, he said.

In an opinion for a panel of three judges, Superior Court Senior Judge John Musmanno wrote that Steinberg, who publicly questioned Gesslein's conviction, wrongly concluded that evidence presented during Gesslein's trial cast doubt on his guilt.

Musmanno, however, said that Steinberg did not abuse his discretion by refusing to step down during the trial, finding that Steinberg's conduct showed no bias or appearance of impropriety.

But the court found that the mandatory five- to 10-year prison term Steinberg reluctantly imposed is illegal under a line of opinions from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Superior Court that hold Pennsylvania's mandatory minimum sentencing scheme is unconstitutional.

Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said he is pleased with the decision reinstating Gesslein's conviction. "We think it's the correct decision," he said.

Martin added that the order throwing out Gesslein's mandatory sentence is in keeping with the current state of the law.

"When we sought the invocation of the mandatory minimum, it was obviously not an illegal sentence," he said.

Gesslein, 45, of Hamburg was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting Randolph after he barged into the North End Republican Club with three friends about 3 a.m. April 29, 2012, after being repeatedly told he couldn't come in. Randolph allegedly tussled with Gesslein before Gesslein shot him dead.

Authorities said Randolph was unarmed and running away when Gesslein shot him.

Gesslein, who had a proper license for his gun and was legally permitted to carry it, has insisted Randolph was the aggressor and that he had to shoot him to save his own life.

Because Gesslein was in possession of a weapon when he committed the crime, the district attorney's office asked Steinberg to impose the mandatory minimum sentence required by Pennsylvania law.

That law requires that a judge find a preponderance of the evidence — a lower standard of proof than is required to convict a person of a crime — that a gun was present when a crime was committed for the mandatory minimum sentence to apply.

But in an August decision, the Superior Court ruled that Pennsylvania's law is unconstitutional under a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that such findings must be made by a jury and to the same burden of proof — beyond a reasonable doubt — required for a conviction.

Assistant District Attorney Heather Gallagher said Gesslein's sentence is among the first in Lehigh County to be overturned under the Superior Court's decision. The constitutionality of Pennsylvania's mandatory minimum sentence laws for drug and gun crimes is now before the state Supreme Court.